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Dear Jack: No, the Nurse Didn’t Inform Us You are Mexican…

5 years, 5 months.

Dear Jack,

This past Saturday as we were driving back home in the 2016 Lexus IS 200t after buying our Captain America: Civil War tickets ahead of time for the matinee, we somehow ended up talking about Mexico; maybe it was in a Jimmy Buffet song we heard on Sirius XM.

I ended up mentioning that you, your sister Holly, and I are all part Mexican; whereas Mommy is not.

You then cautiously and curiously asked me, “Daddy, did the nurse tell you I was Mexican when I was born? Is that how you knew?”

I love that. I love the concept of the nurse in the delivery room announcing to the parents what the ethnicity of their newborn child is.

Doing my best not to laugh at your truly sincere question, I explained that my grandma is full Mexican, Nana is half Mexican, I am a quarter, and therefore you and your sister are an eighth.

I can tell you’re still trying to sort out what it means to be Mexican. You know is that we eat a lot of Mexican food at our house.

And you know that the main language that Mexicans speak is Spanish. You surprised me a few weeks ago when we were at the Franklin Main Street Festival and you announced to me, “Hey Daddy, look- those people have a perro!”

You said it loud enough to where the man and his wife heard what you said. They both turned around and glanced at us for moment, as we walked behind them on Main Street.

I was very confused, myself. “Parrow? Jack, what’s a parrow? Do you mean parrot?”

Then you very matter-of-factly explained to me, “Perro is dog in Spanish.”

You taught me a Spanish word. I took like 6 years of French between high school and college, so it was lost on me.